Accounts of injuries are varied

Exacto founder's case in attack on wife continues

A police officer testified Friday that when Carolyn Cox was asked in the hospital if her injuries were caused by her husband, Billy J. Cox, she said: "Not unless he freaked out."

Billy Cox, 65, founder of Richmond-based Exacto Inc., is charged with attempted murder in the attack in the couple's Bull Valley home. They were married in 1961 and their net worth was estimated at $10 million in court.

McHenry County Sheriff's Detective David Mullen told defense attorney Mark Gummerson the conversation with the injured woman took place around 1:20 p.m. in Centegra Northern Illinois Medical Center in McHenry, where Carolyn Cox was taken Sept. 13, 2004.

Juliana Morowski, an emergency room nurse in the medical center, testified that Carolyn Cox was admitted to the hospital with a severe head injury and that she said she fell out of bed the day prosecutors allege she was beaten by Billy Cox and locked in a garage with two vehicles idling.

Under cross-examination by prosecutors, Mullen said that Carolyn Cox, 65, told him that her husband said she fell out of bed. "But I don't fall out of bed. I never fell out of bed before," Carolyn Cox said.

Gummerson has said that Billy Cox was working outside on their 11-acre estate all morning and returned to the house around noon to find his wife and a police officer in the garage. The defense attorney has highlighted a lack of physical evidence, saying that Carolyn Cox was injured in a fall from a ladder.

Morowski and paramedic Kenneth Larsen, who treated Carolyn Cox at the scene, testified Friday that she never said she fell off a ladder.